


Par for the Course

by aislingdoheanta



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Gen, Meet the Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:12:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5105912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aislingdoheanta/pseuds/aislingdoheanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valjean meets his daughter's beau for the first time. It goes about as well as you'd expect with Marius Pontmercy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Par for the Course

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mofluz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mofluz/gifts).



> Written for TiaTill for the Les Mis Holiday Halloween Exchange 2015. They asked for Valjean grudgingly striking up a sort of friendship with Marius on behalf of Cosette. 
> 
> Title is a gold term meaning what is expected or normal. Oh the irony. 
> 
> I hope you like it!

Valjean Fauchelevent was not excited about this golf outing with the man who was dating his daughter. He never liked to be involved in with the people she dated, let alone spending quality bonding time with them. Unless they were not treating her right. But that only happened once and everyone lived to talk about it.

Cosette told him this one was _different_. Valjean didn’t like the sound of that.

If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he didn’t like how it implied that this could be the guy Cosette was going to marry. The man that would eventually take Cosette away from him.

It wasn’t that he wanted her to remain, perhaps not entirely unhappilyy, but only at his side until he died. He wanted her to go out and live life and do wonderful things. He just didn’t want it to happen so soon.

He just got her back.

He’d adopted her when she was a few years old and kept her with him for the first few years. Then with everything happening with his potential mayoral campaign and worrying that she wasn’t getting a proper enough education, he sent her to a private boarding school.

He went to visit her almost every weekend or she’d come home and they talked constantly. After everything was said and done, he sort of felt like he missed all the important moments in her life. Cosette was quick to tell him that wasn’t true and that he was the best father anyone could ask for, but sometimes Valjean wondered at the truth of her words.

And then she’d gone off to university, albeit a close one. Now she was a woman grown, starting her life and he was realizing that he was beginning to have less and less to do in it. .

So to say that he was a bit grumpy when Marius finally arrived at the golf course, nearly 20 minutes late, was an understatement.

“Mr. Fauchelevent,” Marius greeted slightly out of breath. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He held out a hand and Valjean looked at it coolly.

“It would have been an even greater pleasure if this meeting had taken place at the original time. Twenty minutes ago,” Valjean said, but held out his hand to shake the boy’s.

“I know!” Marius said, shaking his hand a bit too roughly. “I am so sorry. I was trying to decide whether or not to wear a bowtie. My friend, Courfeyrac, he said that it looked cool on me. But Cosette said that I should wear whatever I would normally wear. So I was a little torn. And then I decided that the bowtie worked really well with this outfit.”

“Where is the bowtie?” Valjean asked.

“Oh. Well, I thought I’d fix it a little on my way here but ended up messing it up. And do you know how hard it is to actually tie a bowtie?” Marius asked him.

“Yes. I have worn bowties nearly all my life,” Valjean told him.

“Oh,” Marius said.

“Why don’t we take to the course?” Valjean suggested.

“That sounds good. I love golf!” Marius said.

The first hole made Valjean feel like he was watching Bambi learn how to walk. Marius just could not seem to actually swing the club. He just went along with it and let Marius take all the time he needed.

It was on the second hole when he realized that maybe golfing was a tad too long of an outing to have the first time you’re meeting someone against your will. They hadn’t really been making much small talk and Marius seemed about as capable at golfing as a fish trying walk. It would probably be comical if Valjean wasn’t looking for any excuse to hate the guy.

The third hole brought out the discussion on when Marius and Cosette met.

“Oh, well that’s a funny story,” Marius said turning red. “I say that we met two years ago because we both happened to be at the same café. She dropped her handkerchief and I went to go and try to give it to her, but I couldn’t find her anymore.

“Cosette thinks we didn’t meet until last year when her friend Eponine dragged her to our friend Grantaire’s art show,” Marius explained.

“Cosette doesn’t think who I saw was her because she claims that she has never carried a handkerchief. But even if it wasn’t hers and I just picked up some random person’s handkerchief.” Marius stopped.

“Oh god, what if I _stole_ that form someone? What if someone had been looking for it and I just took it right out from under them!” Marius shook his head.

“So…you still think you saw her two years ago,” Valjean said, interrupting Marius’ internal crisis.

“I know that I did,” Marius said. “You don’t forget a person as beautiful as Cosette.”

Valjean felt himself warming up to Marius.

“And, if it’s not inappropriate to say,” Marius started. “I can see where she gets that from.”

Just like that it was gone.

“She’s adopted.”

The fourth hole saw Marius vehemently admitting that he knew that Cosette was adopted.

“I am so sorry,” Marius said. “Of course she’s adopted.”

Valjean frowned.

The fifth hole had Marius trying to dig himself out of the hole that he had dug himself into.

“That’s not to say that you are not attractive, sir, because you are. I mean, you both are equally beautiful,” Marius said. “It’s not like beauty is only genetic, you know.”

“Mr. Pontmercy,” Valjean said. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

Marius turned so red Valjean was worried he was having a stroke or perhaps a heart attack.

“No!” Marius said. “I’m not. I would never.”

Marius winced. “Not that I would never because you are flawed in some way. It’s just that… Cosette is my everything. And I wouldn’t do that to her with her own father. Or anyone at all!”

The sixth hole was spent covering much of the same ground as the previous three. Valjean was getting annoyed but was starting to understand what Cosette was saying about how endearing Marius was. There was something almost admirable in the honestly and how simply genuine Marius was.

The seventh hole slightly put back their progress.

“And looks are not everything, sir,” Marius said. “There’s a personality. Good character. Kindness. Cosette has everything.”

Valjean’s guard went back up because now Marius was starting to sound like he was leading up to something. “What is it you do for a living again?”

The eighth and ninth holes had Marius detailing his entire life story and his university experience and the falling out with his grandfather.

But that wasn’t going to distract Valjean from the point he was trying to make.

“So you’re unemployed?” he asked Marius.

“Well, technically yes,” Marius said.

There was an awkward beat of silence.

“At least I’m not in prison,” Marius said.

“I was in prison for 6 years,” Valjean said.

The tenth hole was Marius profusely apologizing while Valjean was trying to get them back to talking about the future.  

The eleventh hole was when he finally got the chance to bring up his issues with Marius and Cosette.

“Do you expect to get married  while unemployed? How would you be able to take care of Cosette?” Valjean asked.

Marius looked shocked. “Well, no sir. But Cosette’s a very independent woman. She’d be able to handle herself whether or not we got married.”

“So you’d expect Cosette to be the financially stable one while you stayed home all day?” Valjean questioned.

“Well, I’d only feel comfortable with that if I was a stay-at-home-dad,” Marius admitted. “I wouldn’t want her to feel like I was a burden. I’d want to do my part. But staying home with the kids, that would be just so amazing.”

Valjean couldn’t help but wonder if this guy was for real.

“Your ego wouldn’t be upset if your wife was the one who went out every day and handled the finances while you handled the household?” Valjean asked.

“I believe that every woman has the right to do whatever it is that makes her happy,” Marius said. “I can’t take that as something against my masculinity. I’m very feminist, sir, and I can assure you that I would never try to force your daughter into gender roles for the sake of those outdated rules.”

At the twelfth hole, Valjean did something he regretted.

“What if Cosette was the one to propose to you? You wouldn’t feel emasculated then?” Valjean asked him.

Marius’ eyes went wide. “Why? Did she say something? Oh my god! Is she going to propose?”

Marius dropped his club and started pacing in front of Valjean.

“Okay. This is not a big deal. I mean of course it is! It’s Cosette,” he added for Valjean’s benefit.

“How am I supposed to act?” Marius asked him. “Should I act surprised or relieved?”

“I’m going to putt now,” Valjean told him, ignoring his question.

Holes thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen were spent with Marius trying to decide how he was going to act if Cosette ever proposed to him.

The sixteenth hole was finally when Marius figured out his game-plan.

“Okay, so it’s actually quite simple,” Marius explained. “I just have to act surprised. That way she won’t know that you hinted at it or that she was giving anything away.

“But I can’t be _too_ surprised. I don’t want her to think that I never thought about marriage as a possibility before. And I wouldn’t want her to rethink and potentially change her mind,” Marius said. “Though she had every right to.”

“So just the right about surprised,” Marius said. “But I also want to be excited because it’s finally happening!”

Marius frowned. “But not as though I _expected_ it to happen. That wouldn’t be a nice thing to do.”

“I also don’t want to come across as creepy and as though all I’ve done for the past few years is picture our lives together,” Marius said with a dreamy look on his face.

Valjean felt his throat tighten but not out of only fear of losing Cosette. It was also out of a relief he hadn’t known he was waiting for. It was a relief knowing that someone wasn’t just looking out for Cosette and trying to take care of her. It was that someone was also desperate for her to have her own life.

Perhaps Valjean could get on board with Marius after all.

The seventeenth hole was the first one where Valjean actually acknowledge Marius’ poor performance.

“I take it golf isn’t your sport?” He asked Marius.

“Well, I was never very good at it,” Marius explained. “It’s why I practiced so much yesterday. I wanted to make a good impression. But I guess the nerves got the better of me.”

Marius sighed. “Well, that and all the blisters. Did you know that it’s not recommended to play golf until your hands blister?”

Valjean chuckled. “You don’t say?”

The eighteenth hole had Valjean actually almost sad to see the boy go.

“Next time, you don’t have to agree to do something that you don’t want to do,” Valjean told him.

“I know,” Marius said. “I just wanted you to like me so badly. I know that if you don’t, Cosette isn’t going to want this to continue. She loves you so much and your opinion means everything to her.”

Valjean swallowed. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about there.”

Marius beamed and threw himself at Valjean, hugging him tightly.

“It was so nice to meet you!” He said into Valjean’s shoulder.

“You too, Marius,” Valjean said.

He found that it was actually true. All his fears had sort of faded away with the sheer sincerity of the man currently hugging him for a slightly inappropriate amount of time. But Marius definitely had good qualities, qualities he’d have hoped for in any son he might have had himself.

He could see and understand why Cosette felt the way that she did. For the first time since she admitted that there was someone special in her life, Valjean felt hope and excitement for the future—her future—instead of terror and heartache.

It was a really good feeling. Although, he couldn’t help but dread the day when Marius tried to ask for Valjean’s blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know why golf was what happened in this fic. I don't think you could pay me to write about golf, but there it is. It just seemed to work. (And I may have been thinking about how Marius could practice golf the day before and get blisters so he's even worse ala Andy from The Office.)
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr!](http://saras-almanac.tumblr.com/)


End file.
